Confused teachers, contractors dismayed by last weekend’s protest against rulers
Scarsdale professionals panic over the No Kings march.
BY DEBORAH SKOLNIK
March 28th marked a watershed moment for our country: From coast to coast, thousands gathered in a No Kings protest, decrying overreach by President Donald Trump. Scarsdalians, too, participated in the movement, toting signs along a path that stretched from Mimi’s to Martine’s.
Housing crisis fallout feared
While our town’s progressive residents reveled in the momentum, not everyone felt empowered. “They protested against rulers?” gasped Portia De Ropp, an architect and Fox Meadow resident. “How am I supposed to create renderings? We’re all going to end up living in houses that look like they’re made out of Play Doh!” (Rest assured, she quickly added, that the home plans she creates will still include those exterior windows with no shutters and only the black frames, but larger ones than your neighbors’, because you are better.)
Early-Education Crisis
Lillian Merriweather, a first-grade teacher at Fox Meadow Elementary School, said she felt disoriented as well. “I had to redo the curriculum I’ve been using for forty years,” she lamented. “I used to line up each child against the doorway and mark their height. Then I’d say something like, ‘Wow, Hailey, you’re three-foot-six! You’re growing so quickly!’ The children would beam with pride. Now, all I can say is, ‘Hmm, Rory, you’re somewhere between the height of a mouse and a emu.’ It’s just not fair.”
“But I liked calling it an inchworm!” sobbed Emma, a Greenacres Elementary School first-grader. “I don’t wanna call it an ‘about-as-long-as-a-Cheez-Doodle’ worm!”
High anxiety at the high school
Scarsdale Schools Superintendent Dr. Drew Patrick sadly acknowledged that the new No Rulers mandate has decimated all STEM classes. “Still, I must follow the will of the Scarsdale community,” he stated resolutely.
As he turned to retreat into his office in the same manner that Puff the Magic Dragon sadly slipped into his cave, English teacher Byron Hemingway came running over. “Dr. Patrick, you’ve been the victim of a deceptive synonym. When Scarsdale’s protestors cried out ‘No Kings,’ they didn’t mean ‘no rulers’ like the kind you use to measure gross bugs on your basement ceiling.”
“Oops,” Dr. Patrick said. “Better include that in the Friday Five.” Letting out a sigh that only a beleaguered educational professional can produce, he happily redirected his energy towards freaking out over the proposed 2026-7 budget.
“I can’t explain the whole ‘radius and diameter’ concept now,” groaned one SHS math teacher. “I tell students to draw a circle, but they just make shapes that look like hummus dropped from a picnic table. I’m never getting tenure.”
(Image courtesy Freepik)
